Posts Tagged ‘flash memory’

How Flash Memory Works

Matt LeBoff October 8, 2014 Flash Storage, USB Tutorials

This is a great video that explains how flash memory works. Granted, the video is very technical but does work through the concept of reading and writing data to flash. So if you have the 17 minutes to use, I suggest giving this a watch. The video does cover SLC, MLC and TLC memory and how each of these technologies read and write with the different layers of a floating gate device like NAND. Source: YouTube. Continue Reading

History of Portable Storage Devices – Infograph

Matt LeBoff June 24, 2013 Nexcopy Inc., Off Topic

History of portable storage devices – An interesting topic and starts earlier then you probably think. Starting in 1928 the punch card is what started it all. Like the punch music you probably remember on your grandmothers piano where the piano played automatically from the punch roll.

(Infograph) History of Portable Storage Devices

1928 – Punch Card Storage: One of the earliest forms of portable data storage, punch cards used holes in paper to represent data and instructions for computers.
1956 – Magnetic Disk Storage (IBM 305 RAMAC): Introduced the first hard disk drive, capable of storing 5 MB of data using rotating magnetic platters.
1963 – Magnetic Tape Cartridges: Offered portable data storage for mainframes, allowing larger amounts of information to be transported between systems.
1971 – Floppy Disk: A flexible magnetic disk developed by IBM, making it easier to store and transfer data on personal computers.
1984 – CD-ROM (Compact Disc Read-Only Memory): Allowed digital data to be stored on optical discs, improving durability and storage capacity over floppies.
1990 – PCMCIA Flash Memory Cards: Early flash memory cards, primarily used in laptops and industrial equipment, paved the way for solid-state storage devices.
1994 – CompactFlash (CF) Cards: Used in digital cameras and handheld devices, offering small, removable flash-based storage.
2000 – USB Flash Drive: A major breakthrough in portable storage, offering rewritable, durable, and high-capacity data storage via USB interface.
2005 – SD and microSD Cards: Became the standard flash storage format for cameras, smartphones, and embedded systems due to their small size and reliability.
Today – High-Capacity Flash Storage: Modern USB drives and SSDs now offer terabytes of solid-state storage, with fast read/write speeds and advanced encryption capabilities, replacing most earlier portable storage technologies.

History of Portable Storage (Infograph) An infographic by the team at History of Portable Storage (Infograph)

Flash Memory Puts Mars Curiosity into Safe Mode

Matt Laboff March 4, 2013 Flash Storage, Rugged Flash Drives

As with any good project, there should always be a back up plan.Â The Curiosity for Mars is no different.Â The system has a B-Side computer in the event the A-Side computer went down…well guess what, it went down. There is a theory that cosmic rays affected some of the flash memory on Curiosity causing the A-Side computer to shut down and reboot into Safe Mode. JPL is currently backup up the A-Side data to the B-Side computer and should reboot by weeks end.Â Configuration and data transfer can take a while, then of course the verification process of everything done right. JPL states:

“The hardware that we fly is radiation tolerant, but there’s a limit to how hardened it can be, you can still get high-energy particles that can cause the memory to be corrupted. It certainly is a possibility and that’s what we’re looking into.”